The Lobster ZoneTM               "You Catch Em' We Cook Em'!"

LOBSTER FUN FACTS: 70% of all lobsters harvested in New England are caught in Maine. The lobster catch in Maine has remained stable at around 20 million pounds for the last 20 years. The blood of a lobster is gray or slightly blue in color. A heart, located just behind the stomach, pumps it through a few large blood vessels. One important place the blood circulates is to the gills where oxygen is picked up from the water, much like we take oxygen from the air with our lungs. Lobsters are very sensitive to pollution. Oil in the water reduces a lobster’s appetite, while chemicals we use to kill insects are deadly to lobsters. Lobsters come in many colors. The common color is greenish-brown with an orange underside, but there are also rare blue, red, white and yellow-spotted lobsters. All lobsters turn red when cooked. We can farm lobster, but since it is very expensive, it is cheaper to catch them. Because lobsters like to eat each other, each farmed lobster must have an individual cage or tank compartment. The first reports of caught lobster were in 1605 when early explorers threw over a net and caught them. Commercial lobster fishing really started some time around the mid-1800s. The prices paid to a fisherman/woman for his/her lobsters has risen from just a few cents per pound in 1880 to many dollars a pound today in Maine, and up to 10 dollars a pound as you move away from Maine. Lobsters can travel long distances. Researchers have tagged and released lobsters in Maine that have been found as far away as Rhode Island. THE GROWTH OF A LOBSTER: A tiny lobster hatches from an egg not much larger than the head of a pin. This egg, along with thousands of other eggs, has been suspended from the female’s tail held together in a mass by jelly-like glue. The lobster makes this glue in “cement glands” so when she releases her eggs from inside her body, they will stay attached rather than float away. Any eggs that do not stick to the lobster will not hatch and will probably be eaten by fish or other sea creatures. When the eggs are released from inside the lobster, the female lies on its back and cups its tail to catch the eggs. The eggs on a lobster look like little parts of a berry, which is why a lobster with eggs is often referred to as a berried female. Lobster eggs take about 9 months to develop from the time they are released from the inside of the lobster. When a lobster first hatches it has no claws and it looks more like an insect than a lobster. It is called a larva. It takes about a month before the new lobster looks like a lobster. During this month, the lobster molts about 3 times and looks a little different each time. During these larval stages, before the claws develop, the lobsters float near the surface of the sea. They are very vulnerable to being eaten by fish, and very few survive out of the thousands that hatch from each female lobster. When the lobster finally sinks to the bottom, it may be miles from the place it hatched as it seeks safety of a shelter on the ocean bottom. Most of the life of a new lobster is spent hiding from predators.

MOLTING: The shell of a lobster is its skeleton and it must be shed for the lobster to grow. This is called molting. It takes about 20 molts over 5-7 years for a lobster to become an adult. Before shedding the old shell, a new soft shell is formed under the old shell. To get out of its shell, the body shell (carapace) splits and the skin between the tail and the carapace opens. The lobster rolls onto its side and bends itself almost in half to pull itself out of its old shell. After molting, the new shell lobster pumps itself with fluid to enlarge the very soft shell. The shell is paper-thin at this time. The claws will fall off if you lift the lobster out of the water at this time. The lobster eats the old shell after shedding to gain the nutrients (calcium), which help to harden the new jelly-like shell. There isn’t much meat in a new-shell lobster. In time the lobster will grow more muscle until it is time to molt again. Molting can happen once or twice per year and is triggered within the lobster by rapid increase or change in the water temperature. Lobsters come in close to shore in shallow water for protection when this happens. Molting gives the lobster a chance to grow new body parts like legs or claws that might have been lost in fighting. It takes several molts before a whole new claw can be grown.